John Cassian

If, then, such matters are carefully received, if they are hidden and consigned within the quiet places of the mind, if they are marked in silence, they will later be like a wine of sweet aroma bringing gladness to the human heart. Matured by long reflection and by patience, they will be poured out as a great fragrance from the vessel of your heart. Like some everlasting spring they will flow out from the channels of experience and from the flowing waters of virtue. They will come bounding forth, running, unceasing, from, as it were, the abyss of your heart.… And, as the prophet Isaiah declares, "You will be like a well-watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters will never fail. And places emptied for ages will be built up in you. You will lift up the foundations laid by generation after generation. You will be called the builder of fences, the one who turns the pathways toward peace." That blessing promised by the prophet will come to you: "And the Lord will not cause your teacher to fly far away from you, and your eyes will look upon your guide. And your ears shall hear the word of warning from behind, 'This is the path. Walk along it and turn neither to the right nor to the left.' "